The 18-story Franklin County Municipal Court building will undergo a top-to-bottom renovation
that could take a decade and cost more than $90 million.

James E. Green, the court’s administrative judge, announced yesterday that the first phase of
the project is expected to begin in the spring of 2013.

The announcement came during Green’s “state-of-the-court address” to a crowd of elected
officials and court employees at Veterans Memorial.

The building, at 375 S. High St. in the Downtown courthouse complex, was built in 1979.

“There has been nothing done in terms of significant upgrades since then,” said Ann Kelly,
administrator of the city’s real-estate management office.

The goal of the project is to keep the 33-year-old building operating while converting it into a
modern courthouse with improved security, technology, traffic flow and courtroom design — all in
compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which didn’t exist at the time of
construction.

The biggest challenge: “driving a new elevator shaft” through the center of the building, Kelly
said.

The new elevator, planned as part of Phase 1, is necessary to transport prisoners from a
basement holding area to holding cells adjacent to courtrooms, now located on the 12th through 15th
floors.

The building now has a prisoner elevator that only reaches the arraignment courtrooms on the 4th
floor. Inmates being escorted to higher floors are transferred to a second elevator that is also
used by lawyers and courthouse employees.

It’s one of several security concerns that the renovation is designed to correct.

How the elevator can be installed while courtroom and other functions continue remains to be
seen, said Judge H. William Pollitt Jr.

“It’s that or move us into a different building, and that’s not going to happen,” he said.

The renovations will be done in phases over eight to 10 years to spread out the cost and allow
courthouse operations to continue, Kelly said.

One or two floors are likely to be vacated and used as “swing space” for employees on floors
under construction, she said.

The timing and extent of each phase will depend on the city’s capital budget.

The first phase is expected to cost $10 million and include new windows, mechanicals and
electrical, as well as the new elevator and improvements to existing elevators.

The inadequacies of the Municipal Court building became even more evident when a new Common
Pleas Courthouse opened last year in the same complex.

“We get complaints for lawyers, judges, employees,” said court administrator Keith Bartlett. “I
can’t say I hear much from the public. I’m sure they grumble. It’s not very clean, it’s not very
modern, it’s not as functional as it could be.”